Potential to NZ fintech exports huge

The potential for New Zealand tech exports will be huge when direct free trade post-Brexit opens with the United Kingdom, a leading fintech expert says.

James Brown, general manager of FintechNZ says it’s so encouraging to see the government working proactively to set up free trade with the UK post-Brexit.

“The UK is a very important market for our agricultural, food and beverage exports, as well as high-value manufactured products,” Brown says.

“While New Zealand currently exports around $1.6 billion of traditional products to the UK, the big growth opportunity is hi-tech. Technology is now New Zealand’s third largest and fastest growing export sector so opening a market such as the UK, which is advanced and able to consume many of our tech innovations, will further drive tech export growth.

“We are seeing increasing interest in New Zealand agritech, fintech and space technologies. Fintech is the fastest growing sector at 48.5 percent compared to the global average of 31 percent. The UK is the world leader in fintech and UK firms have generated some $nz7billion in annual revenue and raised $NZ1.3billion in investment last year.

“Following the Lord Mayor of London’s visit to New Zealand earlier this year, FintechNZ sat down with various agencies to discuss a fintech bridge agreement like the one Australia and the UK entered into.

“There is significant benefit in both the UK and New Zealand starting their fintech policies and regulatory expertise which will insure that competition and innovation is not restricted.

“This will work and can be implemented very quickly if we can get government to government, regulator to regulator and industry to industry agreeing the opportunities.

“One of the main benefits could be that New Zealand companies can play in the UK sandbox as we have not got one set up here yet and this will allow companies to scale and test in new markets which is great for growth in both countries.

“We will be able to share and identify trends across blockchain, cyber, regtech and wealthtech making sure that we are inclusive in our approach.

“As the New Zealand reputation for innovations in fintech continues to grow, we expect international investors to attend the annual New Zealand fintech summit on November 29 to discover and connect with our own fintech innovators,” Brown says.